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Sunday, November 21, 2010

BURN: MoDo Should Plagiarize More Often

Seriously, plagiarizing someone's intelligent writing would improve Dowd's column enormously. She is barely even phoning it in these days.

The Dowdy Queen of Manhattan has never been bothered by niggling concerns such as presenting anything like an honest depiction of views opposing her's (in keeping with New York Times policy, apparently). No, no, that would require that she actually come up with a thought or two, and she's been proving for decades that is just...too hard. Much easier to just impute the worst possible motives to your opposition and ignore rational thought all together.

Take her latest "offering":

You know you’re in trouble when you need Henry Kissinger to vouch for you.

But there was the one formerly known as “The One” sitting at a table with a bunch of old, white, Republican dudes, choosing the most abstruse issue on the agenda for his moment to Man Up.

With Republicans treating the president like a dirt sandwich and Democrats begging the president to throw a knuckle sandwich, Obama drew his line in the sand on telemetry.

The Start arms treaty used to be a chance for American presidents to stare down the Russians. Now it’s a chance for a Democratic president, albeit belatedly, to stare down the Republicans.

We are excused for scratching our heads. WTF? Old, white dudes? Like Obama's Vice-President? And what's this about "staring down Republicans"? Over what, exactly?

Well, START, which MoDo goes on to advocate with this;

Even if the treaty doesn’t much affect our strategic security, it affects the relationship with Russia and our standing in the world. And resetting the relationship with Russia, with his buddy Dmitri, is the president’s only significant foreign policy accomplishment.

Again with head-scratching! "His buddy Dmitri" thinks...as do other American foes...that Obama is weak. One may wonder if that is an "accomplishment", but we know it to be a certainty.

And why are we even considering a treaty that does not "much affect our strategic security"? Why bother? Oh, for the atmospherics of "our standing in the world", by which The Dowager Dowd means our kneeling in the world.

Jennifer Rubin, who is everything intellectual that Dowd is not askes;

So we are down to voting for an arms-control treaty, regardless of the merits, because otherwise Obama will look worse than he already does. Does this sound familiar? It’s akin to the Middle East peace talks bribe-a-thon, which was also meant to save the president from embarrassment (but merely has convinced onlookers, as one Israel expert put it, that the Obama diplomats “have taken leave of their senses”).

And what of the timing? In the case of both the Middles East and New START agreements, the deals must happen NOW — again, because Obama needs a boost.

Rubin goes on to suggest that GOP Senators should drive as sharp a bargain as the parties in the Middle East, since Obama has shown such a free hand in bribing folks to get them to make him look good. Dowd does not disagree with the notion that it's all about Obama's image;

He wants to come across as the grown-up in the room, disciplining puerile Republicans who would “mess with nuclear weapons and screw up alliances.”

Dowd's coda to this rambling nuttery is two gratuitous, unhinged swipes at anyone named Palin and Boehner, and this "thought" that bears no logical connection to anything preceding it--

So much for Reagan’s trust but verify. Now we’ve got distrust and vilify.

Indeed, MoDo. Apparently, Speaker-elect Boehner is guilty of not being subjected to the full de-humanizing TSA treatment when flying commercial. Wow. Rampant GOP hypocrisy...!!!